(CHICAGO, IL, 8/28/09) The Chicago office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-Chicago) today announced that the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has determined that Somali Muslim employees at a meatpacking plant in Nebraska faced “unlawful harassment” because of their religion.

CAIR-Chicago attorneys Kevin Vodak and Rima Kapitan settled two employment discrimination cases last month involving Muslim women and their right to wear the traditional headscarf, also known as the hijab.

A group of the more than 120 Muslim employees fired last week at the Swift plant in Greeley met with an attorney representing the Council on American-Islamic RelationsWednesday, hoping that the advocacy group can help them find a resolution.

CAIRO — Coming from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds, a group of American Muslim women are forming the country’s first only-women law firm to dispel stereotypes about Muslim women.

“They are defeating stereotypes on multiple levels,” Ahmed Rehab, executive director of theChicago office of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), told the Chicago Tribune on Friday, August 1.

In what may be the nation’s only law firm composed solely of Muslim women, the attorneys represent the ethnic and religious diversity within the Islamic faith: Some cover their hair, some don’t. Some are Sunni; others are Shiite, and at least one is happy to be secular.